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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/25847854">Where Are You</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/bunnoculars/pseuds/bunnoculars'>bunnoculars</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>SHINee</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>M/M</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-08-11</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-08-11</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-05 05:28:16</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Teen And Up Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>1,582</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/25847854</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/bunnoculars/pseuds/bunnoculars</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>A cockroach observes while Jonghyun holds his concert.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Kim Jonghyun/Lee Taemin</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>26</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>58</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>Where Are You</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>I hadn't written an outsider POV in so long and this idea just came to me haha. I had a paper to write, but now I will focus on finishing Playboy up!</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>The Loud Thing is here. It’s so much bigger than the others, both its voice and its body. The earth shakes as it walks and its shadow swallows up the light every time it paces past her and booms out, “You can do it, hyung,” over and over and over. And over.</p><p>Hyung is Jonghyun. She has no name herself, but since it started showing up here, she’s heard it called thousands of different ones. Hyung. Jonghyun hyung. Jonghyunnie. Jonghyun-ah. Jonghyun oppa. Jjong. Kim Jonghyun. Shiny Jonghyun. It’s being quiet now, slumped over at the table with all the chemicals that smell like death, but soon it’ll be louder than the Loud Thing even, making vibrations that could send the sky crashing down. Music, they call it.</p><p>She’ll be safe under here until they’re all gone.</p><p>Right now it just says, “I thought Taeminnie was coming with you.”</p><p>The Tae word again. Jonghyun says it a million times with each passing moon.</p><p>The Loud Thing sighs like a hurricane. “He said he didn’t want to share.”</p><p>“Sharing is better than nothing.”</p><p>“So am I,” the Loud Thing replies Loudly. “A lot better.”</p><p>“Sorry, Minho-yah. I didn’t mean it like that.”</p><p>The Loud Thing’s footsteps halt, but then metal shrieks across the floor as it drags the chair next to Jonghyun’s out, splitting all the hairs on her legs, and then the earth rumbles beneath her feelers one last time as it drops into the seat.</p><p>“It’s okay if he’s your favorite, just not by that much.”</p><p>“It’s not,” Jonghyun groans. “I’m not okay.”</p><p> </p><p>Food.</p><p>
  <i>Sugar.</i>
</p><p>The smell has her antenna twitching, pull so strong every cell in her body is telling her to go for it. It’s not far. Just over there, just three cracks in the floor away.</p><p>She barely takes half a step when Jonghyun says that word again. Tae—</p><p>“—yeon noona. I can feel my abs disappearing just looking at it.”</p><p>The other thing laughs. It’s not the high-pitched cackle of the Loud Thing that makes her leg hairs stand on end. This thing is smaller, quieter, less dangerous maybe. Or more. The things’ strongest weapon has always been fear. Smelling that on them is the same as smelling death, but right now it’s safe. It smells like the flowers she remembers from Outside.</p><p>“When was the last time you got to eat cake?” it says. “Tomorrow is the last day of your concert, anyway.”</p><p>“Taeminnie is coming.”</p><p>Tae tae tae.</p><p>“He’s seen them up close already, if they were going to work on him they already would have.”</p><p>In a rustle of plastic and cardboard, the smell intensifies. Jonghyun’s voice is thick with food as it says, “Thanks, noona,” but it won’t eat everything, it never does. She hears every crumb as it hits the floor, tiny vibrations that shoot up her legs and seize her whole body up with hunger.</p><p>Later. When the things are gone. If she goes now and gets stepped on she’d die before the taste leaves her mouth, and she wants to live long enough to bring some back to share with the others. Especially <i>him.</i> The one with the shiny shell and strong feelers.</p><p>“Just tell him you like him.”</p><p>“Because it’s that simple.”</p><p>The thing says, “You could make it even simpler and just kiss him.”</p><p>Kiss?</p><p> </p><p>The couch shifts and rumbles above her. She’s lived here with the things long enough to know the sky isn’t falling. If only Jonghyun were as smart as her. It’s been lying above her for an eternity, moping and sighing and curling in on itself and checking that plastic rectangle. Whenever it picks it up, the glow is so bright it filters through down here, and then goes dark just as quickly. It should do something useful and open its bag of food instead.</p><p>“Did Taeminnie just go straight to his seat?”</p><p>Hearing “Tae” in a different voice than Jonghyun’s, she almost misses it. What does it even mean?</p><p>“He said he’d be late,” Jonghyun says.</p><p>“He’ll make it,” another one of the things replies. “Makeup, Jonghyun-ah.”</p><p>Jonghyun’s sigh is so deep she can almost feel the wind from it, and then the couch creaks again and its feet hit the floor like thunderclaps, ground shuddering beneath her so that her feeler slips, nudging up against <i>his.</i></p><p>He's the whole reason she's here, and even if he clicks at her he doesn’t move away, frozen in place as Jonghyun says, “Lee Taemiiiin,” and, “please, Taemin-ah,” and, “how is hyung supposed to confess if you don’t show up?”</p><p>Finally its voice dies and its footsteps rumble across the room. She needs to burrow deeper soon. Maybe hide in the wall with the others. The problem is he likes the Music vibrations. He liked the Cake she brought him, too, and he would have liked the salty, potatoey smelling things Jonghyun left sealed away, too. Maybe in time he will like her just as much. For now she’s fine with just a little. He’s so bristly and warm and he’s looking at her with at least two of his eyes.</p><p>She ignores Jonghyun and the things and looks back.</p><p> </p><p>“Do you want to get dinner after this? I just need to wait for PD-nim, and then we can go.” Jonghyun’s voice sounds different, and not just because it’s close enough she can see it, right above her at the table with the food, no couch between them. It’s…less loud. Softer. But it says the same word as always. “Hmm? Taeminnie?”</p><p>It’s been saying it non-stop since it returned to this room in an explosion of noise and footsteps, interrupting her and him while they feasted on crumbs beneath the table and sending them scuttling in opposite directions. Separating them. Ruining their date. Tae tae tae tae tae tae. She never wants to hear it again.</p><p>The New Thing only replies to half the things Jonghyun says to it. This time with, “You didn’t eat already?”</p><p>“I couldn’t.”</p><p>“Abs?”</p><p>“Nerves.” There’s a rustle of cloth as Jonghyun leans into the New Thing, putting its arms around it. “Tell me I did well.”</p><p>The New Thing squeezes it tight and then lets it go, chair creaking as it sits back. “You know you did.”</p><p>“What was your favorite part?”</p><p>“The cockroach song.”</p><p>Jonghyun laughs. “That?”</p><p>“Only you would write a song about bugs.”</p><p>Short silence. Then:</p><p>“I wasn’t thinking of bugs when I wrote it. At least not only.”</p><p>She smells it. Fear. It’s not at her, or there’d be shouting and stomping, she knows that well, but still, her hairs prick up and she can’t breathe and every muscle in her legs coils up, but if she moves now they’ll see her.</p><p>“Bbo bbo,” the New Thing demands.</p><p>She’s never heard that word before, but maybe Jonghyun hasn’t either, because its fear grows and it says, “What?”</p><p>The New Thing answers, “I changed my mind. Kiss.” That word…! “You asked who would kiss you, did you forget? All the other fans volunteered, but I’m the only one who made it backstage~”</p><p>“Taeminnie…”</p><p>And That word again. It’s never meant danger before, maybe it’s safe after all.</p><p>“It would have been so much easier to hit on me than write a whole song, hyung,” the New Thing tells Jonghyun.</p><p>“You know how many songs I wrote to hit on you?” Jonghyun says in disbelief. “You ignored all of them. How is it that cockroaches worked on you when nothing else did? You hate bugs.”</p><p>There’s a wet smacking noise as the New Thing leans in to put its mouth on Jonghyun’s.</p><p>“I like you,” it says into it.</p><p>As it draws back, there’s another rustle of fabric and Jonghyun’s hands come up to pull it back in, groaning like it’s dying. Are they fighting? Or mating, maybe? More wet sounds, sighs, “hyung” and “Taeminnie” and words she doesn’t recognize like “love you” and “need you” and “Sorry I was so late, sorry I made you wait,” and, “I could barely live without you, baby, how could you leave me alone so long?” </p><p>The important thing is that the scent of fear is gone. She can’t feel their eyes anywhere close, either. <i>He</i> went in the other direction, towards the racks of cloth in the corner. That’s more cracks in the floor away than she can count, but maybe if she’s fast—</p><p>A shout rents the air, freezing her in her tracks. The earth rumbles beneath her feelers, and next thing she knows, the New Thing is standing up on its chair and saying as loudly as the Loud Thing ever said anything, “Kill it, hyung.”</p><p>But it’s not its voice pinning her in place. It’s Jonghyun’s eyes.</p><p>Somehow after everything, Jonghyun will be the last thing she sees.</p><p>“It has a boyfriend, too, Taeminnie,” Jonghyun says. “And kids probably.”</p><p>“It’s a cockroach.”</p><p>Jonghyun turns away.</p><p>“It set us up. What kind of gratitude would killing it be?” it says. “Hyung will just have to carry you out~”</p><p>She runs. Not for her life, though, and when the moon passes over and the world grows light and Jonghyun doesn’t show up and doesn’t show up, and then <i>he</i> finally wants her more than food and later their eggs hatch, and other things like Jonghyun come and go and make Music…there’s a question that stays in the back of her head.</p><p>
  <i>Where are you?</i>
</p><p>With its Tae, probably.</p>
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